A Fresh Start
by Julie Chandler
Summary: Greenlee looks to David for comfort after breaking up with Ryan.


_A.N. I wrote this as self therapy born out of frustration with how D/G were wrecked on AMC. I know I'm not alone in that frustration so I thought I would share it. I hope you enjoy it._

A Fresh Start

"Take me home with you!"

David stood motionless for a few seconds not quite believing his ears.

"David can we go your place, please? I feel like I'm on display or something here in the park."

"Yeah…ah…sure….my car's back this way." He finally managed to get out while gesturing behind him.

The only sounds in David's car were the soft hum of the engine and the buzz of the radio with its volume turned down too low to be audible. David balanced his sight between the road and his passenger. Greenlee's face was tear streaked. But she had stopped crying.

David's mind flashed back to a few minutes earlier. He had arranged to meet Liza in the park. She had some papers that she said he needed to see. As he was making his way to the secluded spot where they were supposed to meet he was shocked to come across a crying Greenlee sitting on a bench. Instinctively, he stopped to ask her what was wrong, fully expecting her usual reaction of telling him to leave her alone.

"You're still staying at the Valley Inn?" She received no response. _"David"?_

Hearing his name brought him back to the present. "Yes, ah what?"

"Are you still living at the Valley Inn?"

"For now, yeah. I have a real estate agent looking for a place but so far she hasn't found the right one."

Her only response was a slight nod. There was no conversation between them until they entered his hotel room and he asked, "Can I get you anything?"

"A drink, I don't care what, as long as it has alcohol in it," she emphasized as she stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

Just as David finished pouring them each a glass of scotch she came out of the bathroom patting her face, still damp from splashing cold water on it. He handed the glass to Greenlee. They sat on opposites ends of the sofa. There were a few moments of awkward silence between them, both staring pointlessly at the floor.

"So ah"…. just as David attempted to break the silence there was a knock at the door. David got up to answer it and found a very annoyed Liza. She immediately started in on a rant.

"You were supposed to meet me in the park!"

"Something came up." he responded trying to keep his voice low.

"Well why didn't you call me? I've been trying to call you but your phone goes straight to voice mail!" She said back almost yelling.

"Look Liza, this isn't a good time."

She spotted Greenlee over his shoulder. "Yeah, so I see!" she said clearly irritated. David rolled his eyes as she turned and quickly walked away.

"What did Liza want?" Greenlee asked in a tone that if he didn't know better David would think sounded a little jealous.

"Nothing, it's not important." he responded waving a dismissive hand in the direction of the door and sitting back down of the sofa.

Greenlee took a sip of her drink and then took a deep breath and exhaled with a small sigh. "Go head and tell me." she finally said

"Go ahead and tell you what?" David asked.

"Go ahead and tell me I told you so."

"About what?" He was becoming more confused about what was happening by the second.

Greenlee swallowed hard obviously trying to hold back tears. She then took another, longer sip of her scotch. "You said that Ryan would never accept me and love me for who I really am!"

Very much intrigued David inquired what happened.

"He told me that I was someone that he didn't recognize. He said the same thing that he said when he first found out that I've known about Madison being pregnant for months." She drank the last of her scotch before she continued. "He said that he couldn't believe that I had so little faith in him. He asked me why I thought I couldn't trust him. But before I could answer he opened the door and told be to get out. …..I didn't know what to do. I wondered around in pretty much a daze for I have no idea how long…"

David listened to her words and watched her closely. He was totally unsure of where she was going with this.

"Anyway," she continued "I ended up in the park. I sat there just thinking about everything I'd been though with Ryan. For some reason I had never been able to answer why I kept the secret. I just felt I had to do it. And then it hit me…..It was like a light shined where it had been dark for so long…. Of course, I had no faith in him and I didn't trust him! Why should I? He slept with my best friend about two minutes after he thought I had died. And there have been so many other things over the years!" She got up to pour herself another drink then continued her explanation. "If he was able to do that why didn't I have every reason to think he would leave me for the woman who was pregnant with his baby?" She paused for a moment taking a deep breath and long swallow of her freshly poured drink. "I tried to justify everything that I had done because I thought Ryan and I were destiny, a great love story to span the ages. Some love…..Love is supposed to make you happy. I don't know why I could never admit this before. But Ryan doesn't make me happy. He never really has, at least not for very long. Our relationship has brought me more pain and misery than anything else….and" her voice started to crack She looked directly into David's eyes….."It's caused me to hurt the people that should matter the most."

David was rarely a man who was speechless. This was the exception. He had no idea how to respond to her last statement. Did she mean him? He wanted to think so but he told himself not to even let his mind go there.

Suddenly she moved closer to him and kissed him in a blatantly sexual way. He pushed her away gently, but firmly. He could separate sex and love. He'd certainly slept with many women for which he had little or no feelings. A perfect example was his current dalliance with Liza. He supposed he could say he was fond of her. Otherwise he had no real emotional feelings about her. As far as David was concerned their relationship was about nothing more than the physical and how their mutual interests could help him get his career back on track. With Greenlee it was very different. He couldn't separate the two. When he had been with Greenlee making love was much more that a euphuism for sexual intercourse. To him it truly was making love in the deepest sense of the expression. She had broken his heart before. He couldn't let that happen again. He simply couldn't take that kind of pain ever again. He knew exactly how this would turn out. Sure Greenlee was all melodramatic now about all the misery Ryan had caused her. He'd heard it all before. She'd be back together with Ryan in no time. He couldn't take the emotional devastation of making love to her just to have her walk out and back to Ryan!

"If you've suddenly developed a issue about being with a married woman don't worry my marriage probably isn't even legal." she said in a tone that could be described as half-way between sarcastic and annoyed.

"Huh? Greenlee what do you mean?"

She dismissed his question saying, "I'll tell you later. I don't want to talk about it now!" She placed her hands of either side of his face, moving her own face inches away. She looked directly into his eyes and said slowly, "David, I need you to touch me. I need you to make love to me. I just need _you!_

Before David could voice anymore objections her lips were on his again. She pressed her body against his in a way that she knew he found particularly arousing. It was useless to even try to resist. All of his resolve was lost. He picked her up a carried her to his bed.

Their love making was heated and intense. David wondered to himself if Ryan had ever satisfied her the way he could. She seemed to confirm his suspicions when she breathlessly told him, "I didn't realize _just how much_ I had missed you!"

Greenlee rested her head on David's chest as he held her close. He wanted to make the most of this precious time he had with her before the inevitable happened and she was gone from his life once again.

After a while she slid out of bed and put on his robe that had been draped over a chair. She walked over to the mini-bar and took out a bottle of water pouring it into two glasses. He watched her closely. He wanted to ingrain this picture in his mind to keep forever.

He sat up in bed and she sat down next to him on the side of the bed and handed him one of the water glasses. He tried to prepare himself for the fall of the axe. Maybe at least she would say that _they _had made a mistake instead of blaming him alone and saying that he had taken advantage of her emotional state, and the fact that she'd had a couple of drinks.

She took a sip of water and then placed the glass on the nightstand. She looked at him keenly and begin stoking his hair, slowly running her fingers through it. David had a feeling of déjà vu. Had she done this before? It felt like she had but he couldn't remember exactly when.

After a few moments David wrinkled his brow in confusion, "Greenlee"?

"Sorry, it's just that I haven't really looked at you with my own eyes in such a long time."

Even more puzzled David asked, "What do you mean?"

She stopped stroking his hair but still looked at him intensely. She seemed to pick her words carefully.

"What you warned me would happen did and I said I wouldn't let them do it but I did. I'm so sorry. ….It's not just Ryan it's almost everyone in my life, my dad, Kendall, Jake….. I let them all get to me. They certainly had no clue what our relationship was like. But I let them convince me what was best for me. I let them tell me what to think and feel. They don't understand but they really don't want to try and understand things either….I mean… how I feel about you."

David was taken aback. He took a sip of his water and sat the glass on the nightstand next to her's. He hesitated for a moment then asked, "how _do_ you feel about me?"

"I love you, David." Anticipating skepticism Greenlee continued with an explanation. "I know I've done a pretty poor job of showing it."

"You have plenty of reasons to be angry with me," David said.

"Yes, there has been a lot of anger" she responded. But so many of the things that I've been angry about I'm to blame for, I drove you to do what you did."

David looked at her and reached up and caressed her cheek. "Greenlee, there's more than enough blame to go around with what happened between us. It's not all your fault!"

She shook her head, "I wish I could go back. There are so many things that'd I do differently."

"There's a lot that I would do different too." David agreed. "But we can't go back."

She smiled at him. "No we can't go back but we could start fresh….Do things right this time!" Her smile turned into an expression of worry when he didn't immediately respond to her suggestion. "You know..ah.. if you wanted to…. I mean." She stammered.

After a few moments he smiled and said, "Well you could probably find a way to convince me."

She laughed as he pulled her back into bed with him!

The End

_Epilogue: Greenlee and David remarried and had twin boys. _

_Ryan married Madison, who soon relapsed in her gambling addiction and bankrupted him. Greenlee took pity on him and gave him a job washing dishes at Confusion._

_Liza resigned as DA and left Pine Valley. She found her dream job teaching pre-law at The University of Nevada -Las Vegas. She found that the proximity to a large population of 18-22 year old males and a multitude of blackjack tables made it the perfect fit for her._


End file.
